Research : Conceptual Art

• In some sense Conceptual art represents an extension of the urge to self-reflection and self-criticism in modernist art. Artists since Manet had been questioning various aspects of their art - its material support, the character of its audience, the institutions which conferred value upon it. Conceptual artists merely pushed this further, abandoning traditional media in the process.
• An important characteristic of most Conceptual artworks is their radical 'dematerialisation.' Artists who pursued this path were often influenced by the simplicity of Minimalism, but wished to do away with the bold and bulky forms of Minimalist sculpture and find an art of the barest essentials, one that need not take any physical form at all.
• Conceptual artists link their work to a tradition of anti-aesthetic artwork whose greatest exponent was probably Marcel Duchamp. Abandoning the traditional notion of the art object as something beautiful, finely crafted, and highly finished, Conceptual artists sought to trouble the category of art itself.
• The analysis of art that was pursued by many Conceptual artists encouraged them to believe that, if the artwork was begun by the artist, it was in some way completed by the audience. This idea later gave impetus to what has been called 'institutional critique,' in which artists turned their attention to the institutional contexts in which art is exhibited, and hence to the social, political, and cultural values of society at large. One famous example of this is Hans Haacke's MoMA Poll (1970), in which he used a poll taken from visitors to MoMA to criticize one of the museum's trustees.

info from : ehow.com

"One and Three Chairs" by Joseph Kosuth

Stephen Wirtz. Ph by http://www.artbusiness.com/1open/firstth0908.html

Pascual Sisto